Are Voters Concerned About a Bill That Could Outlaw Both Abortion and IVF?

An astonishing number of politicians supported it.

Most Read

A bill introduced in the House of Representatives last year has major criminal implications for women. If it passes, women could be prosecuted for seeking an abortion or even for taking a drug and then having a miscarriage. It would also outlaw IVF and any form of contraception that could theoretically prevent implantation of a fertilized egg, including Plan B, the IUD, and the pill.

The bill, known as the Life at Conception Act, is the latest attempt at federal personhood legislation, which says a person is created the moment sperm meets egg and is therefore eligible for equal protection under the law from that point on. Under such a law, the destruction of an embryo or fetus at any stage would become illegal. (This includes IVF because scientists create more embryos than they implant, and the rest are destroyed or used in research.)

Though the bill got bogged down in committee and was given just a 10 percent chance of being enacted, it has a huge number of co-sponsors: 132. That's 30 percent of the House and 56 percent of House Republicans (the co-sponsors are all Republicans except Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota). All but 10 of these co-sponsors are now running for reelection or making a bid for the Senate.

Despite what the bill could mean for women, so far most of its co-sponsors' campaigns overall seem unaffected by their support. A representative for co-sponsor John Mica of Florida says the issue hasn't come up at all in his campaign. And another co-sponsor, Tom Marino of Pennsylvania, told Cosmopolitan.com he doesn't see it as a factor in his political chances. "If I used my support for this as an asset, then it would politicize something very sacred for personal gain, and that's wrong," he said. "In terms of it being a negative liability for me, it is hard to reconcile not supporting something you believe in because of political expediency."

Though no statewide personhood laws have passed so far, a number of laws around the country currently act as backdoor personhood measures. In some states, fetal homicide laws say that if a pregnant woman is killed, the murderer can be charged with a double homicide. And in some counties, prosecutors have interpreted laws intended to protect children from exposure to drugs to mean a fetus must be protected from its mother's drug use too. In fact, earlier this month, a mother in Tennessee was arrested under a new law that effectively criminalizes drug use while pregnant. And despite their failure in the past, new personhood initiatives are introduced each year: North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Carolina will vote on personhood this fall, and in June, 79 percent of Republicans proclaimed their support for a potential personhood law in a South Carolina primary.

Still, Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, says there's a reason these bills have never gone anywhere. "They are wildly out of step with most American's views," she told Cosmopolitan.com. "Seven in ten Americans believe that women — with our families and doctors — are far better suited to know when it's time for us to start families than a bunch of politicians who don't know anything about our lives."

In Texas, the defeat of co-sponsor Steve Stockman seemed to illustrate this point — Stockman made personhood a key issue in his Senate primary campaign and was crushed by incumbent John Cornyn. And several other candidates are also trying to use their opponents' co-sponsorship against them. In Arkansas, Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor's campaign has pointed to Tom Cotton's record on this issue. "Unlike Congressman Cotton, Mark does not support outlawing common forms of birth control, including the pill and Plan B, which are used by women across the state of Arkansas," a spokesperson told The Arkansas News. When the Hobby Lobby decision came down, Democratic Sen. John Walsh of Montana reminded voters where his challenger, co-sponsor Steve Daines, stands. "The decision echoes a disturbing effort by Montana's Congressman to deny women everywhere their fundamental freedom to private health care," the Walsh campaign said in a statement. "Congressman Daines would go even farther and outlaw common forms of birth control for all women."

More than anywhere else, the debate over personhood is playing out in Colorado, the home base of Personhood USA. There, Sen. Mark Udall, a Democrat, has been pounding his challenger, Cory Gardner, with ads calling him out for his support of personhood. Gardner responded in a commercial that he no longer supports personhood after he "listened" to his constituents. But Udall's campaign launched a website that shows Gardner with a cartoon of the federal personhood bill perched on his shoulder, and Planned Parenthood Votes released an ad calling Gardner "still wrong for women's health." Gardner's campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

"Colorado might be a little unique because Coloradans know what this means," says James Owens, deputy communications director for the Udall campaign. "We've had two ballot initiatives on [personhood] in the last six years, and they've failed by overwhelming margins. So when people hear that there's a congressman running to represent the entire state who still has his name on a federal personhood bill, they know what that means for their access to birth control and safe access to abortion."

"[Gardner has] built his entire political career on support of personhood," Personhood USA president Keith Mason told Cosmopolitan.com. "I think he's just listening to some bad advice, and he's playing politics."

Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado, the co-chair of the Pro-Choice Caucus in the House, says she's "not sure the average woman knows about this federal bill," but she believes it could be an important issue in the fall.

"I think that voters, particularly women voters, are going to be very focused on issues of birth control, pregnancy prevention, and their own choices for health care," she told Cosmopolitan.com. "I have daughters, ages 20 and 24 — of course they always vote — but they've been talking to their friends, and their friends are appalled that politicians would be messing around with their right to reproductive health."

Thirty percent of the Congress sponsored the Life at Conception Act. Will one of them be on your ballot this fall? Check out our map of H.R.1091's co-sponsors.